President Infinity v. Ericson – 2.2.1 for Windows and Mac has been released!

If you are a President Infinity owner, you are eligible for this upgrade.

Highlights: over 40 scripted events in 2016 (real-world events that have occurred, and that can change issue profiles, player momenta, and more), bug fixes, scripted events editing, and more 2016 updates.

Note: for Macs, there appears to be a bug loading save games from the Start Screen. Workaround: start a new game, then go to Options > Load Game.

What’s new in this upgrade

fixed a problem using a Windows emulator on Linux that caused ‘DLL not found’ error messages

fixed bug (“=11″) that would occur when computer player ran out of primaries opponents but was still in primaries electoral strategy mode, would occur same turn as final primaries opponent withdrew

Main Screen > fixed bug if clicked Main Screen before Turn Summary Screen would appear on first turn

2016 > set all ‘on’ by default candidates to ‘undecided’, set their ‘official’ start dates, set their ‘off’ dates if have withdrawn (note: I set Scott Walker and Jim Webb’s official start dates to July 1st, 2015 instead of July 2nd, simply so they would start ‘decided’ with the July 1st campaign start date – it is highly likely they had decided at this point)

2008 > fixed bug in events.xml that was causing error when trying to edit id’s in Editor (Note that 2008 descended campaigns can be fixed, but it has to be done manually. Open events.xml in an XML editor, then add the line <conditions/> just after the line <name>Sarah Palin at convention</name> .)

2016 > Reps > Jindal > set to ‘off’ on Nov. 17th, 2015

2016 > updated Presidential and Vice-Presidential debate dates

scripted events now cause profile 5 news stories (was 3)

2016 > added 42 events

2008 > Condoleezza Rice > female

Select Campaign Screen, Select Leader Screen > fixed bug where last line of blurb might not be displayed

This is a comprehensive update.

You can download this release by requesting a download e-mail at the link below.

Important: when you receive the e-mail, you will want to download the file from the “windows president infinity” or “mac president infinity” link.

If for some reason there is no “windows president infinity” or “mac president infinity” link in your e-mail and you are a President Infinity owner, please notify us and we will fix that for you.

A lot of academic analysis regarding elections is devoted to questions such as which electoral system is better – proportional representation or first-past-the-post? Or which type of proportional representation is best? And so on.

A problem with these kinds of discussions is that they work within the framework of zero sum elections – to the extent one party wins, another loses.

I think a more important question is, instead, how do we turn elections into non-zero sum (win-win) situations?

Here’s one example. Parties could win funds-to-be-spent, tied to the number of votes they receive. The more votes, the more funds. If people don’t vote, those funds stay out of the process. No longer would the winner be whoever gets 50%+ of the vote (or what have you). Instead, parties win to the extent they engage voters. You could even have it so that voters could vote for multiple parties. The funds could then be spent in ways or on programs the parties thought were important. They wouldn’t be exclusive – both party A and party B could try to tackle some problem by setting up different initiatives using the funds they are allocated through the vote.

I think it makes sense to spend more time focusing on how to create non-zero sum situations in politics.